werkhain: Running an Award-Winning Berlin Coworking Space on Cobot
werkhain is a 1,400 m² coworking space in Berlin, built inside a former gym and inspired by the city's club scene and raw creative energy. It uses Cobot to run keyless access, bookings, and payments across its multi-floor layout.
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Favorite Cobot Features
The Story Behind werkhain
Seven weeks. That's how long it took founder Manuel Leucht and co-initiator Selina Schröter to turn a former gym in Friedrichshain into werkhain – a 1,400 m² coworking space that took home three prizes at the 2025 German Coworking Awards, including 1st place for Best Newcomer Space.
The look is unmistakable. Graffiti by local artist H_Kubed runs through every corner, paired with vibrant lighting that shifts the whole building from daylight calm to club-like energy after dark. There are rotating exhibitions, concerts, and pop-up sessions. But the design never gets in the way of the work. Function comes first: ergonomic height-adjustable desks, monitors at every workstation, phone booths, meeting rooms, a cooking kitchen, and a rooftop terrace.
What makes werkhain genuinely distinctive is how that design is combined with a thoughtful neurodiversity-friendly environment. The building is organized by energy level. Lower floors are social and high-energy (community kitchen, gaming area, rooftop) and it gets progressively quieter as you go up, ending in silent floors for deep focus. Members move through the building based on their mood or task, and deliberately designed calm areas give anyone who feels overstimulated a place to zone in.
werkhain's team and their awards from the German Coworking Awards 2025
Running a 24/7 Coworking Space: Access, Payments, and Booking Challenges
A 1,400 m² space in Germany spread over multiple floors with 24/7 access, a flexible mix of flexdesks, fixdesks, private offices, and meeting rooms, creates three concrete operational problems:
First, access. werkhain promises 24/7 entry to members across a building where different floors serve different purposes. Handing out physical keys at that scale is a security risk and an administrative drain on a team of eight.
Second, payments. Members expect a smooth, automatic way to pay, and money needs to come in reliably without chasing invoices or handling card details by hand. Payments, memberships, bookings, and access all need to sit in one connected system, or the day-to-day starts to fall apart.
Third, bookings across a varied inventory. Meeting rooms are billed by the hour, desks and offices – by the month. Members need to reserve resources themselves without going through the front desk every time.
"Cobot helps us manage the complete coworking operation in one place – from memberships and payments to bookings, access, and member communication. For a space like werkhain, it provides the structure behind the scenes that lets the community and the physical space function smoothly day to day. It's a solid, reliable coworking management tool, and without a system like this, running a coworking space would be extremely difficult."
How werkhain Uses Cobot to Run Access, Payments, and Bookings
For 24/7 entry, werkhain uses Cobot's Automated Access Control with its Tapkey integration. Members unlock doors from their phone, and the team grants or revokes access remotely from Cobot – no physical keys, no handovers. When someone's membership starts or ends, their access updates automatically alongside their account.
On the payments side, Cobot connects to Stripe to collect card payments automatically. Money lands without anyone chasing it, and because payments sit in the same system as memberships, bookings, and access, the team manages the whole operation from one place.
Bookings run through Cobot's Bookings and Calendar. Members reserve meeting rooms by the hour themselves through the White-labeled Member Portal, and External Bookings handle requests from people outside the space without the team fielding each inquiry by hand. Desks and offices bill on monthly plans, all from one system, with no front-desk bottleneck.
- 24/7 keyless member access across the building, managed remotely with zero physical keys
- Automatic card payments through Stripe, collected without manual follow-up
- Self-service room and desk booking from a single platform
Advice for Other Spaces Considering Cobot
"Use the free trial month properly. It really helps to understand what the tool can do and how it fits your own operations.
The Cobot team is also responsive and helpful whenever questions come up, and fast, friendly support makes a big difference when you're setting things up or adjusting workflows.
In general: don't try to run a coworking space without a proper coworking management tool. It gets messy very quickly. A tool like Cobot isn't just nice to have, it's part of the basic infrastructure."
